true colors of the alleged "justice" system, and F

K

kyleb

Veteran
first a little history:

http://www.btinternet.com/~clairejr/Articles/artic_12.html

Media giant Fox TV, owned by Rupert Murdoch, pressured its investigative reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson to lie about the safety of Monsanto's Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), and fired them when they refused. The whistleblower reporters are now suing Fox. For updates on the trial, please go to http://www.foxbghsuit.com
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and the conclusion:

http://www.sierratimes.com/03/02/28/arpubmg022803.htm

so the case gets taken to the Florida Appeals court who rules that not only that the first amendment allows the media willfully endanger our safety by deceiving us; but moreover, judges can overturn a compensation settlement awarded by a jury to someone who had the morality to stand up against such treachery. how could this seem like a good thing to anyone?
 
Yeah this is pretty much what money does allows you to do whatever you want. Unfortunately all the media is owned by huge corporations now so when it is in their best interest they can just lie to us, oh well.
 
oh well? if they can't go around firing people for being of a given race i don't see why we should let them fire people for being of a respectable moral fiber. :rolleyes:
 
It's pretty obvious from any viewing of Fox news that they have an agenda. I mean, they don't even try to pretend like they're impartial.
 
This is the reasonable outcome for such a court case. I can't even fathom any alternative result.

What you people don't seem to understand is- courts are not a place to try and investigate truths for debateable topics that are not associated with laws. It just simply cannot be done and there aren't enough resources to handle this kind of thing in the legal system.

In this case- you have a debate that has equal support on both sides. You have the right-wing, that points to the fact that the growth hormone is FDA approved and tested, then the left-wing that says it is cruel to the cows and has been shakily linked to disease by a few 3rd party experiments. In truth, the left is trying to use the media in order to take up a fight that belongs at the FDA, not at Fox News.. and not at the time of the courts.

In this kind of case, there are two possible ways to settle the difference:
1) The courts would need to investigate the two opinions to deem one "more true than the other"- in this case, you would be asking the courts to second guess the FDA's approval of milk containing this growth hormone.
2) Take a more reasonable approach and make the courts determine whether or not the gist of the report is true or false, does the first ammendment and FCC laws dictate that for EVERY point of a debatable topic reported, is it required by law to have each and every one of them hashed out and investigated by the legal system in order to determine if they are 100% valid, truthful and unbiased.

Stop and think for just one second guys. The very root of the case would involve isolating whether or not the underlying reports are indeed "false, lies, deceitful" etc.etc.etc. You would have to prove this to take that angle and would set precendence for every news story opinion, commentary and report in the future to be fought in a court of law to determine it's validity. This is impossible in 90% of the cases since every interesting bit of investigative reporting ALWAYS has two sides (take the war in Iraq, for example).

I cannot imagine a future where the courts are deemed judges of public opinion. If there is any legal basis or law involved in this case, it should fall flatly on the FDA for having an approved product for general consumption that has ties to cancer. Either this needs to be brought forth to the FDA, or they need to publicly state they dissent from the findings of the special interest/left.
 
i agree with sharkfood on this one. theres a reason we have an appeals court. I believe that the reporters are allowed to appeal the appeal. Not sure where but they are.

later,
 
Is it legal for Fox to pressure it's reporters to report as they want them to? Reporters have to sign their name off on this stuff, well sorta.
 
why not, its his company if he wants to report that there are martians, he can force people to do it. they have a right not to work there, so i dont see the big deal.

Solution: Make all news media a nonprofit corporations, and free from control of large corporations. That should make a difference.

later,
 
Yes, the difference would be we no longer have freedom of the press, since you are placing conditions on who can speak and who can't.

If I want to use my money to create a think tank, news paper, or tv program, you would bar me from doing so OR if people wanted to pay me to support my work, you would bar it. What right do you have to tell me that I can't publish my magazine, or that people can't pay me for it?


This gets into why campaign finance reform is impossible. As a citizen, I can choose to exercise my voice in many ways. I can speak out myself, or I can join with other people and contribute resources to a leader to speak for all of us. Those resources can be time, money, or anything in between. I view the placing of arbitrary limits on these as a violation of my civil rights. The ends do not justify the means of violating my rights.

I can certainly afford to pay more than $1000 to my candidate, what right do you have to tell me who I can and can't give money to? And even if you stopped me individually from contributing $100,000, I could give a tax-free $1000 give to 100 people (say, from my political group) and have them do it. There is simply no way to stop this activity, and as you try more and more to outlaw it, you end up stepping on more and more people's rights.
 
but the fact remains that the people in question were hired on in a contract to report news; as in disinformation, not disinformation. if they signed up to work for an outright tabloid it would one thing, but it seems reasonable to assume that these people intended to make an honest living.

also, the courts very much are a place to try and investigate truths for debatable topics when those truths are relevant to the case, be it one of wrongful termination or if the glove fits on O.J.'s hand. granted, our legal system is far from perfect and i doubt it ever will be; but it will only get worse as long as we keep letting it slide the wrong direction.


oh and epicstruggle makes a good point, it would be nice to see a push in that direction in the media and in politics as well.
 
but the fact remains that the people in question were hired on in a contract to report news; as in disinformation, not disinformation.
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I take it you mean, "information, not disinformation"- at which point it seems you missed the point entirely.

also, the courts very much are a place to try and investigate truths for debatable topics when those truths are relevant to the case
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They are NOT a place to create truths in this context! Stop and think for a moment what you are placing on the legal system.

A reporter flies to Iraq and interviews a half dozen Iraqi Republic Guard soldiers who all think the war in Iraq is unjust and imperialistic. He then flies to France and interviews a dozen politicians in this country who then dub the war on Iraq to be Imperialistic based and for economic reasons.

This reporter then flies back to the states and wishes for his affliliate station to air the "facts" as he has reported them. It's unfortunate that it's totally one sided, left-wing only and contains absolutely zero argument for the otherside of the debate. The affiliate station refuses to air the report until the reporter also provide some right-wing/opposite viewpoints and makes statements of support for the war in the same report.

You have the same situation.. identical. You have some folks that spend time with PETA, some 3rd party animal rights groups with labs, and some extreme left folks that want to condemn this FDA approved growth hormone as having both animal rights violations on top of alleged health risks that the FDA somehow missed. The reporter is told they must provide some pro-side of the coin in order to air their report.

The moment you ask the courts to try and form opinions towards the extreme left or extreme right is the moment you lose all freedom of the press and start to establish a dictatorship. When it becomes precedent for a legal body to rule the validity of one standpoint versus another as one being "more right than the other"- you then create a polarized legal system of political views. You also begin to create precedent of illegality to express the opinions of one side versus another as legal ramifications will proceed. It suddenly becomes no longer "legal" to state such and such growth hormone is dangerous to one's health, or that a war in country XYZ is unwarranted and tyrannical. After all, investigative journalists accumulated reported evidence of one side and forced the legal system to dictate the opposite side of view were nothing but lies or deception. You have the founding footsteps of a Stalinistic or dictatorship in the making.
 
:oops: yes i ment information, not disinformation. also, i think you have a fundemental missunderstanding of my postion as you seem to think i want the courts to "create truths" for some odd reason. :?
 
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